The strange onset of nostalgia driving around in Beau's clapped out 60s muscle car was butterfly inducing. She could remember when he first got his licence and before that when they would sneak out in his fixer-upper trying not to get caught. It certainly looked and sounded in better condition but there was still obvious work left to be done on his poor old Billie Jean.
The mocking and teasing had lasted well over a month when he had finally settled on Billie Jean as the name for his prized ride but now looking back, that memory brought as a smile to her lips.
It didn't take them long to get from the school to the Lockwood Mansion and she silently trailed in after him when they got to the front door.
"Hey mate how did it..." Tyler called out to Beau from the couch. Looking up he trailed off seeing who was behind him. "What is she doing here." He said through clenched teeth as though she couldn't hear him.
"I'm here to talk - I've heard you have some concerns for my wellbeing." She narrowed her eyes at Tyler, somewhere deep inside her the dormant part of her wolf awoke to the presence of a fellow shifter and then she realised that the Lockwood lounging in front of her was a werewolf just like her. "How long ago did you shift?"
Tyler nearly fell off the couch, gathering himself he brushed the invisible dirt off his trousers before trying to act nonchalant.
"Its a simple question Lockwood."
He ignored her and instead turned toward Beau. "So she knows?"
"Of course - I spent my summer holidays roadtripping with an original vampire who, you'll be glad to know, I won't be telling about the stunt you two pulled with the necklace."
"So you're not his lap dog?" Tyler scoffed, turning to face her for the first time.
"No more than you are." She snapped back, her eyes igniting, the signature golden hew overpowering their natural colour. His anger and eyes responded in kind.
"You're a werewolf." Beau whispered in recognition, ignoring their little display of metaphorical hackle raising.
"In part."
"In part - what does that mean?" Matt asked.
"I'm not sure. I am a wolf, that much is certain but there are some things I need to figure out."
"How's that even possible?" Beau asked.
"You either are or you arent a wolf, and you obviously are - doesn't seem like there is much to figure out."
"Just because you shift every full moon doesn't make you an expert in wolves Tyler." Sying she took a deep breath and continued. "From my understanding I guess one of my parents was a werewolf the other something else - both from pretty active lineages or else the gene would have died out and I'd just be one or the other."
"What do you mean you guess, I thought your mum was a doctor and your dad was on TV. Wouldn't you have known if they were from active supernatural families."
"It's not something I actively qualify but the Verde's - Ryan and Natalia - well they're my parents but not my birth parents we weren't biologically related."
"How did I never know that?" Beau asked, his face looked betrayed and she had to turn away as his eyes poured into hers.
"I don't really broadcast it - to me they were my parents. I've told like five people since they died that we weren't biologically related but really what does that matter. I was up for adoption when I was a few weeks old and they adopted me when I was five."
"So your birth parents could quite realistically have been anything and you'd been none the wiser."
"Except I killed someone and Bonnie activated my magic when she showed me hers."
"You killed someone?" "Magic?" Beau and Tyler said at the same time, their words merging together into a loud mess
"It is how the curse is activated isn't it." She said gently to Beau.
"I guess."
"Well yes we know how that part works but magic? Wolves don't have magic Grace."
"Well that is the part I need to figure out."
"So you think one of you biological parents was a wolf and the other was what - a witch?"
"It would make the most sense."
"I've found that with this world, not much makes sense." Tyler sighed, crashing back onto the couch into his original lounging position. Beau took that as his cue to make himself comfortable. Grace hovered awkwardly before taking one of the seats adjacent to them. "Well then go on Verde, how about you try and make a little sense for us."
"Well from what I can tell I ran away to go and travel the world, that is the story the town got told when they found that note right?" The boys nodded confirming what she had pieced together.
"I never wrote the note and I didn't leave Mystic Falls until summer, after the full moon sacrifice, after saving Damon's life from the wolf bite and after explaining myself to Matt. I don't know if it was a mixture of confusion and panic or something more but that was the cover story Stefan and Elena ran with."
"Cover story? What were the two of them covering?" Tyler asked, still confused.
"If you were here the whole time where were you?" Beau nodded, equally as baffled. "What even brought this all on?"
"Bonnie's relatively new magic reacted violently to me and knocked me cold. Apparently they couldn't wake me up."
"So they did what, make up a story you had ran away and hid you in their basement?" Beau snapped, waving his hands around like he always did when he was mad.
"Not the basement, no." She smiled. "The crypt down at the Mystic Cemetery. I woke up six months later in a wooden coffin, confused as hell and slightly angry. Klaus was the only one to show me some decency and I stayed with him since."
An onslaught of questions fueled by anger mixed with general disbelief poured out of the two of them but before she could even think to answer the door burst open and in walked Jeremy Gilbert and Oliver Rafferty. And what a sight to behold they were. Armed to the teeth the two of them had a myriad of weapons along with leather jackets and holsters to match, they looked straight out of some zombie hunting teen flick.
"And what are you supposed to be?"
Before Jeremy could concoct some ridiculous story to defend their appearance, Tyler cut it to save him the embarrassment.
"Its alright Jer, she knows."
"Hey Oli." Grace greeted him with a mock salute and beaming smile, she had always had a soft spot for the younger Rafferty. "And hello Jeremy, I don't think we've spoken before." She noticed his hand still lay uneasy over the stake strapped to his side. "Its alright, I'm no vampire."
"I'm training to be a vampire hunter, you know - we both are." He said, still not letting go.
"Ohhh, scary - I'm sure you'll clean Mystic right up, we could use a couple of ghost busters too I hear, know any of them." Grace chuckled.
"She's not a vampire." Beau repeated what Grace had already said, trying to reassure the obviously nervy Jeremy.
"No? But she's in league with them."
"In league with?" Grace snorted. "This isn't a fantasy game, and I'm not in league with the boogyman and I don't make deals with the devil."
"Yeah, what about your relationship with the literal devil incarnate Klaus?"
"Get off your high horse, there isn't a vampire alive without some sin to show for it - he's just been alive long enough to make a name for himself. Besides, you probably saw him more recently than I did. So you can lower your weapon. Besides have I not proven my neutrality all this?"
"Neutrality?" Oliver asked, interjected.
"I kept Elena - his sister's - secret, didn't I. Nik never knew she was still alive - I did and I didn't rat her out. And yet everyone in this town seems to still hate me, actually I never figured out why they hated me to begin with but they certainly haven't stopped."
"Well then, well done for you, you weren't an absolute disgrace to humanity." Jeremy let go of his stake just long enough to sarcastically applaud her.
Grace held her breath just long enough to not burn him to a crisp.
Her pyromaniac urges were becoming...questionable.
Considering the half of her that didn't want to incinerate him with magic was the wolf half that simply wished to rip him limb for limb she was glad she at least had a degree of self-control.
"Please. After all she's done to me..." She caught herself. It wasn't her job to spill Elena's sins at the feet of her brother. "Look why don't we move on to nicer things. He final relented, lowering his weapon. So, who is teaching you to hunt the undead?"
"Ric." Oliver answered helpfully as both he and Jeremy took their own seats.
"Alaric Saltzman?" She seemed unimpressed.
"Yes him." Jeremy answered defence and protective of his mentor. " What do you have against that?"
"Nothing just he's a terrible shot."
"What do you mean, he's a vampire hunter and an excellent shot."
"Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining," she smiled thinking back to the woods and their last encounter. "I'm glad he can't aim."
"What are you talking about?"
"He shot me during summer." She smiled trying to be dead cool about the whole thing. It wasn't her business that she still had nightmares - everyone from this town probably did anyway. No need to preach to the choir.
"What?"
"When Elena, Damon and Ric were tracking us up in the mountains - I can only assume he thought I was Nik but he let off a shot from his crossbow, it was just like like yours actually. I'm just glad he hit me where he did. I can only assume he thought he'd missed his intended target because he never came to see what he had hit."
"Ric is a good shot if he wanted to he would have hit you in the heart or the head."
"What about your magic - did you use it to deflect it?" Beau asked leaning forward, she felt like she was at a Comicon convention and being grilled on her latest role as the magic freak show. It was unnerving to see Beau so interested in the supernatural. Though it was nice that he was looking at her with the same look he normally reserved for Peter Parker and Tony Stark.
"I didn't even know I had magic when he shot me and even then my magic only manifested itself in defence against supernatural attacks, not wooden stakes shot at me by history teachers."
"Well, perhaps your magic made an exception." Tyler added helpfully.
"Perhaps."
"So if it wasn't the head or the heart where did it hit you." Jeremy asked, his eyes scanning over her trying to find a trace of a scar.
"Nowhere you'll ever get to see Gilbert."
The lads all chuckled as Jeremy flushed an unfortunate shade of pink and Oliver patted him on the shoulder out of sympathy. She laughed along with them.
"Perhaps in more bikini suited weather." She relented, not that it was a valid argument, the sun was shining and it was perfect weather for a swim in the creek.
"Go on show us." Tyler prompted her.
"Oh alright." Putting her feet up on the table in front of she slid herself forward in her chair, arching her back to push her stomach forward and shed pulled up her top, exposing a large white scar on her abdomen.
"Ric did that to you?" Jeremy asked, his voice soft, almost broken.
"Why didn't anyone heal you?" Beau whispered, his hand unconsciously reached out and his body moved closer to her but she pulled back down her top before he could touch her.
"I didn't tell Stefan and Nik exactly what happened and I don't take vampire blood. I patched myself up with medical supplies until we got to the next stop where a witch patched me up but by that time a scar was pretty inevitable."
"I thought good healers could get rid of anything."
"I didn't know that at the time so I thought scarring was normal. I didn't realise till more recently that's it's not. The mountains we were in was wolf country and when hunting a hybrid both Vervain and Wolfsbane work on equal grounds."
"So although you hadn't activated your curse yet you still had wolf traits, including an adverse reaction to Wolfsbane."
"Yep, hence the scaring."
"Oh." That was Jeremy's only reply.
"It's alright. At least history class will be fun."
At that, they all chuckled.
"It wasn't actually that, so you are a wolf then? Like Tyler."
"Yes. I activated the gene in Chicago."
"What human did Klaus make you kill?"
"I killed a magic practitioner that was torturing Stefan for the location of your sister." Grace snapped back at Jeremy. "Believe it or not my world doesn't revolve around Niklaus."
"Your summer seemed to."
"Enough," said Tyler. "Jer, stop trying to go toe to toe with Verde - I may not know her as biblically as Beau but I do know she will obliterate you verbally and physically and that was before this summer's magical rebranding. So cut it. And Verde cut the kid some slack - I get you hate his sister's guts but chill."
"Not to be a killjoy but there is only so long we can stay out of school before your powers of persuasion fail us Sweets - I don't know about you lot but this year is meant to go a little differently for me, new leaf and all that."
"You're right - same goes for me." Looking at the clock on the wall she smiled. "We should be able to make it back in time for recess."
"Lovely." Beau nodded, looking around the others. "Care to join?"
"I suppose." Tyler sighed, whilst the others nodded in agreement.
Tyler and Jeremy got up and left, presumably to go and look for their stuff. Oliver rose to join them but Beau waved him down.
"Your stuff is in the truck."
"Oh yeah." Oliver smiled ruffling the back of his hair.
"Like it always is. I need to go have a word with Tyler - be back in a second."
Oliver's left foot began bouncing up and down as it was just them. A clear marker of how long she had been gone was how insanely tall he had become - she was never good with heights but he had easily surpassed both his brother and the six-foot mark. It seemed, however, he had retained his goofy smile and child-like coyness.
"How is life Oli?"
"Good." He answered out of instinct before realising perhaps that wasn't quite the answer he was looking for. "You know what yeah, things are pretty strange - I have a bow and it isn't for shooting targets its for killing things that were already dead but were once alive and still are at least sorta human and it's a little big."
"Big is definitely the right word for it." She sighed. "I still don't know what to make of the whole thing. It was enough trying to get my head around this world that I knew nothing about but to find out that because of some people I never knew who gave me up for adoption that I was always part of that world is a bit crazy."
"It's good to have you back though Grace." Oil smiled, checking the doorway to make sure he was out of earshot. "Beau had missed you. We both."
"I've missed you too Oli." She whispered reassuringly back.
How else do you tell someone they hadn't crossed your mind. You lie to them. You have to.
Part of her of course had missed the Rafferty brothers - they were a constant in her life, a strange and messy piece of the puzzle that defined her. They were also a product of Mystic Falls - intrinsically and irreversibly linked through no fault of their own to the most miserable place on the earth.
"No rest for the wicked." Beau called out from the front. Grace and Oli rose to join him, to her surprise Beau's car was vacant and instead he sat at the wheel of familiar Dodge Ram.
"This is Matt's isn't if?"
"He got a 1982 Chevy K20 and I got this off him." Beau smiled, slapping the steering wheel. "She's still got a bit of life in her."
"Uhh huu. And what's this one called."
"Nope nah ah," said Beau violently shaking his head. "You have not been back long enough to start making fun of Billie Jean."
"So go on what is truck called?"
"Annie."
"Because she's a smooth fucking criminal." Tyler called out as he jogged over and effortlessly jumped into the flatbed, vaulting over the side panel on his way up.
"The only thing criminal was Matt selling you this truck." Grace said, rolling her eyes at his Beau's antics.
Oli, realising there was only room for three in the cab moved to join Tyler in the back but Grace caught his arm.
"I have a feeling I'm a little bit more indestructible than you." She smiled pointing at the cab. "You too Jeremy, I don't need to dying and your sister having another reason to hate me."
She crossed her arms and waited for him to comply. Oli do so without much complaint but Jeremy still seemed rather standoffish with her, he remained still spinning a ring round his finger for a moment before relenting and joining the other two upfront.
"Onwards Annie." Tyler yelled, slapping the roof of the cab.
She could hear the grimace that flashed across Beau's face at the abuse his vehicle was facing but still he turned the key and pulled off, poor Annie rumbling forward.
Back to school it was.
***
Hello lovelies and welcome to the end of Chapter Three!
So we have had a bit of time to get used to Beau and now met Oliver, how do we feel about the Rafferty brothers?
I have a whole bunch of fun in store for them, in the meantime enjoy who I am picturing them as.
BEAU RAFFERTY // He Who Calls Her Sweets
OLIVER RAFFERTY // Lil Rafferty
In Part Two of Grace there will be the introduction of a few more OCs just to keep things interesting, it also becomes easier to do so as Grace is now interacting with more than just Nik and Stefan. Also as the story progresses, certain characters may be cut, minimised or have their roles changed to allow for Grace to slot into the storyline more organically.
I hope you have enjoyed the first three chapters, more to follow soon - I just couldn't keep the new stuff to myself any longer!
Would love to hear feedback but also literally anything about the books - I love reading your thoughts, predictions, ships, loves, hates and all of it. So please comment away!
Love,
Emma xox